Yes, and the idea of comparing Africa to other countries is certainly not new. Here's an example from 2006: http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/35-the-size-of-africa

At the time, the Economist also redid the exercise starting with an equal-area projection: http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2010/11/cartograph...

pardon me, but where's Alaska?

they list 9.629M for USA, Google says 9.827M. Alaska, according to Google = 1.718M.

WAT?

Where is Canada? If we are to count huge landmasses hostile to human habitation, here we are:

Sahara desert: 3.629 million sq miles (9.4 million km²) Canada: 3.855 million sq miles (9.985 million km²)